Taken to the Edge (20 page)

Ford sat beside her and took her hand, intertwining their fingers. “Nervous?”

“More nervous than I was the first time I held him in the hospital. I was so scared back then, worried if I would be capable of caring for such a tiny, helpless person. I worried that he might reject me.

“That must sound silly. Of course a newborn is going to love his mother. But a ten-year-old boy who doesn’t even
remember
his mother…”

“He will love you,” Ford said. “The decisions you’ve made regarding Justin—”

“Arturo,” Robyn corrected him. “His name is Arturo now. We have to remember that.”

“Anyway, most women would not have been as generous. What you’ve done is extraordinary.”

“All I had to do was think what was best for him, and the decision was made,” she said.

Justin—Arturo—knew he was adopted. For the past two months, investigators, lawyers and social workers had been looking into the matter of the boy’s “adoption” by a family in Nuevo Laredo.

Although there had never been any formal papers drawn up, his adopted parents, Pedro and Estella Valdez, believed he had been placed willingly in their care by his relatives. Trina’s mother had told them the parents died in a car accident, and that’s what they’d told Arturo.

From all accounts, they had been devoted and loving parents who had given their adopted son a happy, secure life. Arturo was healthy and thriving.

Suddenly discovering his biological parents were alive had surely been a shock. And though it was her right, Robyn wasn’t about to rip the child away from the only home he’d known, his loving parents and friends and pets, and thrust him into a world of strangers in a foreign country.

She wasn’t willing to completely give him up, how ever.

A white Buick pulled into the parking lot, and Robyn tensed. “That’s them.”

“I’ll take a walk,” Ford said. “Give you some time alone.”

“No.” She refused to let go of his hand. “You’re part of this. I want you here.”

He smiled warmly at her. “Then I’ll stay.”

The passenger door opened and the boy climbed out. Robyn’s heart pushed into her throat. Oh, God. It was really him. Justin was alive. It wasn’t a dream.

She waved to him and stood up. He saw her and waved back, tentatively. She resisted the urge to run to him and hug him—she was afraid she would never let him go. Her arms had been so empty for so long.

He was taller than she thought, leaner. He’d probably had a growth spurt recently and lost some baby fat. He was a young man, not a baby.

Robyn clamped a hand over her mouth and willed herself not to cry. That would only make him uncomfortable.

Arturo looked at the social worker, who had just got ten out from behind the wheel of the car. She smiled and nodded. Then he walked toward Robyn, eagerly, it seemed to her. He carried something in a plastic bread bag.

“Hello, I am Arturo. It is nice to meet you,” he said in his best schoolbook English. “
Me llama
Robyn. It’s wonderful to see you again,” she returned in his language. Her Spanish was pretty good. Being a teacher in South Texas, she’d had to learn.

“We speak English?” Arturo asked. “I want to learn better.”

Robyn smiled. “Yes, we can speak English. This is Ford.”

“Your husband?”

She touched the diamond ring on her left hand. “We’re getting married in two months. What do you have in the bag?”

“Oh—bread,” he said a little self-consciously. “You said we meet in a park. Parks have birds.”

Robyn had read the letters from his adoptive mother over and over, wanting to learn as much as possible about her child. One thing she had learned was that he loved animals. He had two dogs, a cat, a goat and a one-legged pigeon he had rescued.

She looked around now and didn’t see any pigeons or sparrows. “We can walk to the lake,” she suggested. “The ducks will like your bread.”

He seemed pleased by that suggestion.

“So you are my real mother?” he asked as they walked slowly toward the small lake at the center of the park. The social worker followed at a polite distance.

“I’m your birth mother,” she said. “I had you until you were two-and-a-half years old. But then you were taken from me.”

“You think I was
muerto
. Um, dead. I think you are dead, also.”

“I bet you were surprised to find out I wasn’t.”

“I was happy,” he said simply. They’d reached the edge of the lake, where a few white ducks and a pair of mallards were feeding. The birds came right over when they saw that Arturo had bread. He threw them a handful of crumbles, and they all made a dive for the bits of food, splashing and creating quite a ruckus.

Arturo laughed and threw them some more.

“I was happy, too.” She wanted to tell him how she grieved for the years they’d been apart, the years of his growing up that she had missed. But she wasn’t sure his English or her Spanish would be adequate.

“Mama—my other mama—cried.”

“I’m sure she was scared. She didn’t know about me. She was afraid I would take you away. But, Arturo, I won’t do that. I mean, if you were unhappy, of course I would… You’re not unhappy, are you?”

He shook his head.

“I am so grateful to your mama and papa for raising you, for giving you a happy home. But I do want to see you. I want us to get to know each other. I need you to be part of my life.”

The bread was gone, and the ducks paddled away. Arturo balled up the plastic bag and tucked it into the pocket of his crisp, new blue jeans. “I want that, too. I always feel a little different, yes? Everybody has black hair but me.”

Arturo had thick, sandy-brown hair. Straight like hers, but closer to Eldon’s color. “Was that bad, being different?” she asked cautiously as her fierce maternal instincts roared to life.

“Not really. It made me special in a way. But still, different. I always want to know—there were no pictures.”

They all found another bench and sank down, facing the placid lake. “Now you don’t need pictures,” she said, studying him, drinking in the sight of him. “You look a little like your—like Eldon.”

“My real father. What should I call you?”

Robyn had dreamed of Justin calling her Mama, or Mom. But that would have to be his choice. “What would you like to call me?”

“I thought maybe Prima,” he suggested tentatively. “Because you were my first…my first mother.”

Robyn was touched. “I would like that.”

“Do I have any brothers and sisters?” he asked suddenly.

Robyn and Ford shared a look, and Ford smiled and turned away. “No,” Robyn said. “You were my only.”

“But you might…I mean, when you get married.” Arturo seemed embarrassed.

“Yes,” Robyn said. “That could happen. Would you like a little brother or sister?”

“Oh, yes,” he said enthusiastically.

“We’ll get right on that,” Ford said with a grin, and Robyn had to resist the urge to elbow him. When Ford had proposed the week before, they had talked about children. Robyn wanted more. She’d been raised as an only, and she’d wanted a house full of kids. Ford liked the idea, too. But they had agreed it would be too much, that it might complicate the relationship they wanted to build with Arturo.

But maybe it would make things even better.

“So, I know we just met,” Robyn said, “and you don’t have to decide right away, but do you think you might want to come stay with us sometimes? Over Christmas vacation, or during the summer?”

“Would Mama and Papa let me?”

“If you want to.” The lawyers and the social workers had already talked to Pedro and Estella. Everyone had agreed this would be the best, most fair way to handle the custody issue, at least for now. During the school year, Arturo would remain in Mexico, where he had friends and a history. But he would spend summers and vacations in Texas with Robyn and Ford.

Eldon would have liberal visitation rights. He had been the first to point out that he was hardly ready to be a father. He had to regain his health first, then figure out what to do with his life.

“Then I like to come here and visit. You have pets?”

“I thought that was something we could do together. We can go to the shelter and you can find a dog or cat for us.”

He seemed satisfied. “It will be good, then. I will have two houses.” He laughed nervously. “People will think I am very rich, with two houses.”

“You’ll have lots of family, too. Many, many people who love you very much.” She couldn’t help herself; she had to hug him. She slid one arm around his narrow shoulders and pressed her other hand against his face, pulling him against her shoulder.

To her surprise, he not only welcomed the hug but also returned it with exuberance, throwing his arms around her neck and clinging to her fiercely.

“I love you,
mi niño,
” she whispered, knowing it was too much too soon.

“Te amo, mi madre,”
he whispered back.

That was when she knew he felt it, too, the connection between them that time and distance hadn’t severed.

When they pulled apart, she saw that Ford was watching with a dopey expression on his face. He dabbed at one eye with a finger, then looked away.

“So,” Robyn said briskly. “Are you hungry?”

“Yes, very hungry!”

“There’s a really good Mexican restaurant down the street….” She trailed off when she saw that Arturo was giving her a look children used exclusively for a parent who had just said something really stupid.

Even Ford shook his head.

“Right, dumb idea,” Robyn said. She’d been thinking he might like something that reminded him of home. “How about Denny’s? They have hamburgers and fries and really good chocolate shakes.”

Arturo nodded. “I like chocolate.”

The awkwardness eased. Arturo chattered about school and friends, alternating between English and Spanish, and Robyn shared a few stories about when he was a baby, which he clearly enjoyed. And for the first time in a very long time, the tension left Robyn’s chest, and she knew everything was going to work out.

She would finally have her family. Maybe it wasn’t a storybook family. There would be complications and disagreements. If she had another baby—and she had to confess, she was already in love with the idea of Ford as a baby-daddy—that would add more craziness into the mix.

They had so much to learn from each other, about each other. But so long as there was love—and there would be lots of love, that was about the only thing she was sure of—they’d be okay.

Ford took her hand under the table and squeezed it.

“Thank you,” she said softly, at the exact moment he said the very same thing.

TAKEN TO THE EDGE

Copyright © 2011 by Karen Leabo

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